Showing papers by "Kenichi Tezuka published in 2011"

Flow-Induced Vibration of Valve Head of Steam Control Valve

Abstract: Main steam control valves in power plants are required to operate under wide ranges of valve openings and pressure ratios. In the present paper, experimental and numerical investigations are conducted with rigid and flexible valve head supports in order to clarify mechanisms of valve head vibrations caused by unsteady flows around the valve. Results obtained with the rigid support without valve head vibration show that the unsteady flow around the valve head causes pressure fluctuations on the valve head surface with random and impulsive wave forms. With flexible support, the valve head vibrates at near the natural frequency of the valve head support system and the vibrations are excited around the operation condition where the pressure fluctuation becomes large with rigid support valve head. When the valve head vibration becomes large, the pressure fluctuation becomes periodic with the same frequency of the valve head vibration. The numerical result shows that the response of the separated jet delays behind the valve head motion. As a result, the lateral fluid force fluctuations on the valve head provide negative damping on the vibration.